Thursday, January 31, 2013

Reuters/Reuters - An Israeli soldier looks on as a United Nations jeep drives past the Quneitra border crossing between Israel and Syria, in the Golan Heights, on the Israeli side of the 1973 ceasefire line …more

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria warned on Thursday of a possible "surprise" response to Israel's attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.

Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes", Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria.

"Syria is engaged in defending its sovereignty and its land," Ali told a website of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria and Israel have fought several wars and in 2007 Israeli jets bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site, without a military response from Damascus.

Diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target had been a military research center northwest of Damascus.

Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.

"Hezbollah expresses its full solidarity with Syria's leadership, army and people," said the group which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Israel has remained silent on the attack and there has been little reaction from its Western backers, but Syria's allies in Moscow and Tehran were quick to denounce the strike.

Russia, which has blocked Western efforts to put pressure on Syria at the United Nations, said that any Israeli air strike would amount to unacceptable military interference.

"If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the U.N. Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian said the attack "demonstrates the shared goals of terrorists and the Zionist regime", Fars news agency reported. Assad portrays the rebels fighting him as foreign-backed, Islamist terrorists, with the same agenda as Israel.

"It is necessary for the sides which take tough stances on Syria to now take serious steps and decisive stances against this aggression by Tel Aviv and uphold criteria for security in the region," Abdullahian said.

An aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Iran would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself, but Abdullahian made no mention of retaliation.

Hezbollah said the attack showed that the conflict in Syria was part of a scheme "to destroy Syria and its army and foil its pivotal role in the resistance front (against Israel)".

BLASTS SHOOK DISTRICT

Details of Wednesday's strike remain sketchy and, in parts, contradictory. Syria said Israeli warplanes, flying low to avoid detection by radar, crossed into its airspace from Lebanon and struck the Jamraya military research centre.

But the diplomats and rebels said the jets hit a weapons convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon, apparently destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, and the rebels said they - not Israel - hit Jamraya with mortars.

The force of the dawn attack shook the ground, waking nearby residents from their slumber with up to a dozen blasts, two sources in the area said.

"We were sleeping. Then we started hearing rockets hitting the complex and the ground started shaking and we ran into the basement," said a woman who lives adjacent to the Jamraya site.

The resident, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity over Israel's reported strike on Wednesday morning, said she could not tell whether the explosions which woke her were the result of an aerial strike.

Another source who has a relative working inside Jamraya reported that a building inside the complex had been cordoned off after the attack and that flames were seen rising from the area after the attack.

"It appears that there were about a dozen rockets that appeared to hit one building in the complex," the source, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "The facility is closed today."

Israeli newspapers quoted foreign media on Thursday for reports on the attack. Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles on security and military issues to the censor, which has the power to block any publication of material it deems could compromise state security.

Syrian state television said two people were killed in the raid on Jamraya, which lies in the 25-km (15-mile) strip between Damascus and the Lebanese border. It described it as a scientific research centre "aimed at raising the level of resistance and self-defense".

Diplomatic sources from three countries told Reuters that chemical weapons were believed to be stored at Jamraya, and that it was possible that the convoy was near the large site when it came under attack. However, there was no suggestion that the vehicles themselves had been carrying chemical weapons.

"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, echoing others who said the convoy's load may have included anti-aircraft missiles or long-range rockets.

The raid followed warnings from Israel that it was ready to act to prevent the revolt against Assad leading to Syria's chemical weapons and modern rockets reaching either his Hezbollah allies or his Islamist enemies.

A regional security source said Israel's target was weaponry given by Assad's military to fellow Iranian ally Hezbollah.

"This episode boils down to a warning by Israel to Syria and Hezbollah not to engage in the transfer of sensitive weapons," the source said. "Assad knows his survival depends on his military capabilities and he would not want those capabilities neutralized by Israel - so the message is this kind of transfer is simply not worth it, neither for him nor Hezbollah."

Such a strike or strikes would fit Israel's policy of pre-emptive covert and overt action to curb Hezbollah and does not necessarily indicate a major escalation of the war in Syria. It does, however, indicate how the erosion of the Assad family's rule after 42 years is seen by Israel as posing a threat.

Israel this week echoed concerns in the United States about Syrian chemical weapons, but its officials say a more immediate worry is that the civil war could see weapons that are capable of denting its massive superiority in airpower and tanks reaching Hezbollah; the group fought Israel in 2006 and remains a more pressing threat than its Syrian and Iranian sponsors.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Marcus George in Dubai; editing by David Stamp)

Israel launched an airstrike inside Syria overnight near the border with Lebanon, according to U.S. and regional officials.

The regional officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a convoy of trucks shipping weapons bound for the Islamist militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. They said the shipment included sophisticated, Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah.

A U.S. official confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks.

Hezbollah on Thursday condemned the raid, saying it targeted a "scientific research center."

In a statement the group said it "expresses full solidarity with Syria's command, army and people," and called the strike "barbaric aggression".

Hezbollah has committed to Israel's destruction and has gone to war against the Jewish state in the past.

The Israeli military declined to comment, and all the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the strike.

In another incident, Syrian state TV said an airstrike hit a military research center northwest of the capital, Damascus in Jamraya. It said the strike caused material damage and the center was used to advance Syrian military capabilities.

Well-placed sources in Israel tells Fox News that the Free Syrian Army has claimed responsibility for attacking -- twice over the last week -- what is believed to be the same facility.

These sources believe that the rebels attacked the facility and that the Assad government is claiming that the Israelis executed the strike to garner public support for the government by conflating the rebels with international conspirators, as the government has sought to do since the onset of the revolution.

Sources say the facility is indeed believed to be related to the development of chemical weapons and was attacked for that reason.

A statement from Syria's military said the center was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and self-defense" of its armed forces. It said the strike destroyed the center and a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others.

The location and strike could not be independently confirmed because of reporting restrictions in Syria.

Top Israeli officials have recently expressed worries that if desperate, the regime of President Bashar Assad could pass chemical weapons to Hezbollah or other militant groups. U.S. officials say they are tracking Syria's chemical weapons and that they still appear to be solidly under regime control.

Among Israeli security officials' chief fears is that Hezbollah could get its hands on Syrian chemical arms and SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. If that were to happen, it would change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon.

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier this week, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

The military in Lebanon, which shares borders with both Israel and Syria, said Wednesday that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12 sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.

A senior Lebanese security official said there were no Israeli airstrikes inside Lebanese territory. Asked whether it could have been along the border on the Syrian side, he said that that could not be confirmed as it was out of his area of operations.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the sorties took place at 2 a.m. local time Wednesday. It said four warplanes which flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

It said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted Tuesday.

A Lebanese security official said the flights were part of "increased activity" in the past week but did not elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The area of Lebanon where the flights took place borders southern Syria.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon and Lebanese authorities routinely lodge complaints at the U.N. against the flights.

Fox News' James Rosen, Jennifer Griffin, Justin Fishel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi being interviewed at UN Headquarters in New York. UN Photo/Mark Garten

30 January 2013 – Reaffirming the importance of negotiation to stop the carnage in Syria, the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States reacted cautiously today to reports that an opposition leader was ready to hold talks with the Syrian Government.

“It is worthy of note. Let’s see how the Government is going to respond,” Lakhdar Brahimi said in an interview with the UN News Centre, in regard to reports that the head of the major opposition coalition, Mouaz Alkhatibare, said that he was willing to talk to representatives of the Government outside of Syria and under certain conditions.

“And let’s see how the colleagues of Mouaz Alkhatibare are going to react,” Mr. Brahimi added, noting that the opposition leader said that among the most important conditions for the talks was the freeing of 160,000 political prisoners.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011. Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which has also left more than 4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

Despite the failure of international efforts to bring about negotiations to stop the fighting, and whatever the result of Mr. Alkhatibare’s comments, Mr. Brahimi reaffirmed today the importance of talks toward a political agreement.

“Our efforts at starting negotiation have not been very successful. But the military campaigns have not been successful either in finishing the conflict. In fact, the conflict is expanding and damages inflicted on the people and the country are growing,” he said.

“Nobody has said it’s going to be easy,” he added. “But perhaps negotiating is better than killing each other.”

Yesterday, Mr. Brahimi briefed the Security Council on the latest developments and told reporters afterwards that the 15-member body must act now because Syria was being destroyed “bit by bit,” with that destruction posing a threat to the entire region.

Today, he called for the Council to act in a unified manner, using the Geneva communiqué, which was issued after a meeting of the so-called Action Group for Syria last June and which lays out key steps in a process to end the violence in Syria.

Amongst other items, the communiqué called for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups, as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition.

Mr. Brahimi said that the communiqué was still a good basis for a political solution, but it had been interpreted differently by the people who have signed it and by the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States. What is needed, he stressed, is for the P5 to come to “a common understanding of what Geneva meant.”

The communiqué could then be transformed into an international agreement, through, for example, a resolution of the Council to bring about the necessary negotiations.

“I think they can make the Geneva agreement operational,” he said, referring to Council members. “I think they could do that if they speak in one voice.”

In his remarks today, Mr. Brahimi said he does not plan on returning to Syria unless there are developments there that require his presence, commenting that otherwise he had a good team on the ground. “If I go to Syria it’s because there is something that I need to do,” he said.

Mr. Brahimi’s remarks came as a humanitarian pledging conference for Syria chaired by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concluded in Kuwait today, raising over $1.5 billion to assist civilians affected by the ongoing conflict over the next six months, including those taking refuge beyond Syria’s borders.

***
News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Security Council must act now to address Syria crisis, UN-Arab League envoy stresses

Syria says Israel air strike bombed military research centre in Jamraya

AFP January 31, 2013 6:59AM

Syrian rebel fighters flash the V-sign for victory as they celebrate after taking over the village of Aljanodiya, northwestern Idlib province yesterday. Source: AFP

THE Syrian army said that an Israeli air strike at dawn targeted a military research centre in Jamraya, near Damascus.

"Israeli fighter jets violated our airspace at dawn today and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research centre in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence," the army's general command said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.

The strike came "after terrorist groups made several failed attempts in the past months to take control of the site," the statement added of rebel groups fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace via Mount Hermon, or Jabal el-Sheikh in Arabic, at low altitude and under the radar, the army said.

"They... carried out an act of aggression, bombarding the site, causing large-scale material damage and destroying the building," state television quoted the military as saying.

Syrian refugees arrive at the International Organisation for Migration at the Za'atari refugee camp in Mafrq, Jordan.
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The army added that two site workers were killed in the strike.

"This assault is one of a long list of acts of aggression and criminality against the Arabs and Muslims," said the statement.

The army denied earlier reports that Israeli forces had launched an air strike overnight on a weapons convoy from Syria near the border with Lebanon.

Israel has expressed concern that Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group, an ally of the Damascus regime, or other militant organisations.

The nearly two-year-old conflict in Syria is destroying the country 'bit by bit' and the UN Security Council must take action, UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi says.
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The Security Council simply cannot continue to say 'we are in disagreement, therefore let's wait for better times'... They have got to grapple with this problem now,' Brahimi told reporters after briefing the Council.

'If a little more pressure is brought to bear, maybe a little bit more progress will be made,' the former Algerian foreign minister said.

Brahimi blamed both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and the foreign-backed opposition forces.

'Objectively, they are cooperating to destroy Syria. Syria is being destroyed bit by bit. And in destroying Syria, the region is being pushed into a situation that is extremely bad, and extremely important for the entire world,' Brahimi said.

He said that is why the Security Council has a duty to overcome its divisions.

Brahimi suggested that the Security Council revisit the Geneva Communique of June 2012, a broad but ambiguous proposal endorsed by the US and EU countries as well as Russia to provide a basis for negotiations.

Brahimi said that even though he had 'not made much progress' in his efforts to bring an end to a conflict that has left more than 60,000 people dead, he would not stop trying.

'I am not a quitter,' he said, however adding: 'The moment I feel I am totally useless, I will not stay a minute more.'

Brahimi was scheduled to have dinner later on Tuesday with the UN envoys from the Council's five permanent veto-wielding members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The comments came after Syrian opposition activists said the bodies of some 65 young men, apparently shot execution-style, had been found in the northern city of Aleppo.

The victims, all between the ages of 20 and 30, were found near the Quwaiq river in the city's Bustan al-Qasr district, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group.

Video on YouTube showed a row of bodies along the banks of the river; many had their hands tied.

The videos' content could not be independently verified.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel-Rahman said he had no information on who was behind the killings and that the number could reach 80, as more bodies were feared to be under water.

Abu Omar al-Halabi, a Free Syrian Army commander in the city, said that most of the dead were reported kidnapped earlier this year.

Relatives were gathering at the banks of river looking for their missing sons, activists in the area said.

One video circulating on opposition websites showed dozens of men gathering at the site, some wearing medical gloves, others carrying machine guns.

'Their only crime was that they were residents of Bustan al-Qasr and they were Sunni Muslims,' a man was shown shouting as he looked down at bodies awaiting identification.

Syrian television station al-Dunia, which strongly supports President Assad, said 'terrorists' were behind the killings.

In Ras al-Ain, a town on the Turkish border, clashes between rebels and a Kurdish militia ended with the Kurds taking control of a number of rebel-held positions, the Observatory said.

The People's Defence Committees, a militia linked to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), have been fighting insurgents there since mid-January.

Rebels suspect the PYD of collaborating with the Assad regime, while the PYD says it is defending the town from Islamist extremists operating at the behest of Turkey.

The continued violence came as the United Nations warned that its resources were not adequate to deliver assistance to Syrians in need, ahead of a donors conference in Kuwait on Wednesday that aims to secure more than $US1.5 billion ($A1.44 billion) in new cash pledges.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

At least 79 Syrian men and teenage boys, each with a single bullet hole to the head, have been found dead in a river in Aleppo in the biggest mass execution of the country’s two-year civil war.

By Ruth Sherlock, Bustan al-Qasr, Aleppo6:54PM GMT 29 Jan 2013

Some of the bodies had been so recently killed that blood still flowed from their wounds. Others had clearly lain stagnant in the water for days, their bodies bloated and the skin disintegrating and grey.

The hands of each had been roughly tied with string or wire. Each had circular wound in their forehead or eye. The large exit wounds at the backs of their heads suggested they had been shot at close range.

Family members arrived in their hundreds to identify missing sons, saying many had disappeared after crossing from rebel-held territory in Aleppo into regime areas on the other side of the river.

It was impossible to be certain who was responsible for their deaths. But those identified, at least half the total by nightfall, were from rebel-held districts, and locals blamed government checkpoints on the other side of the river.

Families of the dead men and boys found in a stagnant canal in Aleppo search for their missing relations in a schoolyard (Alseeio Romenzi)

These are my sons,” said Abu Mohammed, 73, as he shuffled towards the corpses laid out in rows in a schoolyard. A relative held his arm, as he stared at the exposed faces of the victims.

His legs buckled as he recognised the two young men, no older than 30 as his sons. They had travelled to central Aleppo, which is still in the hands of the Syrian government 20 days before.

“They thought they had nothing to fear from the government, so they went to renew their identity cards. But they didn’t come back. Now I have found them here.” The toll was at least 79, according to The Daily Telegraph’s count, the worst for any single find of victims summarily executed in Syrian violence chaos. There have been larger tolls but in more random rampages through villages, such as that of Houla, near Homs, last June.

Most of them were young men, some dressed in military fatigues, and others in civilian clothes. The corpses of two young boys, no older than 11 and 15, were among the dead.

They were pulled from a narrow, filthy strip of the Oweq River at a point where it edges on Aleppo’s rebel-held district of Bustan al-Qasr. The regime front line lay visible just a few hundred metres away on the other side of the water.

“We saw the first bodies at 8am in the morning, and we started to take them away,” said one local resident, who did not want to be named.

During the past month, the river had becoming a dumping ground for corpses, local residents said. Two bodies were pulled out last week. Unclaimed and without identity cards, the bloated corpses were left in the flower patch in front of one of the rebel hospital in case a passer-by should recognize them.

Tuesday’s discovery was on a different scale. Mamnoud Hassoun, 26, a rebel fighter, said there were still at least 30 bodies floating in the stagnant water further upstream, but it had become too dangerous to reach them: “It is hard to get the bodies because they are in the view of government snipers,” he said. “When the snipers saw there were Free Syrian Army pulling out the bodies they started shooting.”

Pick-up trucks, the Syrian revolution’s hearses, lined the road outside the school. Male relatives surrounded one that already contained its body, crying and angrily firing Kalashnikovs into the air.

Residents said that there had been an attempt by the government to reclaim Bustan al-Qasr the day before, and that in the fight rebels had killed several soldiers.

“When this happened, the loyalist militias that have formed checkpoints on the government side started arresting people whose identity cards showed they were from liberated areas,” said one, Wael Ibrahim, 30. “It is clear they were not being kept in a prison because they still have their belts on their clothes and these are removed usually before people are put in jail.”

Regime sources blamed the rebels for the deaths, saying those killed had been "abducted by terrorists" and that their relatives had been trying to negotiate their release. But that was not the story told by the relatives choosing the bodies for burial.

“I hope that Bashar al-Assad and all his family are killed in the same way, and that they go missing like dogs,” screamed one old woman, from the crowd.

It also comes two weeks after militants launched a bold attack on a BP gas facility at In Amenas, close to the Libyan border. A four-day standoff was ended by an Algerian army assault. In all at least 37 workers at the plant died, including six Britons, along with 29 hostage-takers.

On Sunday night, two security guards protecting a gas pipeline were killed and seven others wounded in an attack southwest of the Algerian capital, as Islamist terrorists once again targeted the country’s vital oil and gas industry.

Militants from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb launched a series of homemade rockets towards a pipeline that runs north from the Sahara desert’s Hassi R’Mel field.

The largest in Algeria and the second largest gas field in the world, most of its product passes through coastal cities and on to southern Europe.

Army units were alerted and searched for the attackers in vain around Ain Chikh, on the southern edge of the Kabylie mountain region that has become the last hideout of al-Qaeda’s branch in northern Algeria.

Reuters/Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, January 24, 2013. REUTERS/Larry Downing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said he has been wrestling with the question whether a U.S. military intervention in Syria's 22-month-old civil war would help resolve the bloody conflict or make things worse.

In a pair of interviews, Obama responded to critics who say the United States has not been involved enough in Syria, where thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced according to U.N. officials. Transcripts of both interviews were released on Sunday.

The United States has called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, and has recognized an opposition coalition - but has stopped short of authorizing U.S. arming of rebels to overthrow Assad.

"In a situation like Syria, I have to ask: can we make a difference in that situation?" Obama said in an interview with The New Republic published on the magazine's website.

Obama said he has to weigh the benefit of a military intervention with the ability of the Pentagon to support troops still in Afghanistan, where the United States is withdrawing combat forces after a dozen years of war.

"Could it trigger even worse violence or the use of chemical weapons? What offers the best prospect of a stable post-Assad regime?

"And how do I weigh tens of thousands who've been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?" he said.

Obama's comments come as world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, said they wished the United States were more engaged in geopolitical issues such as the conflicts in Syria and Mali, where France is attacking al Qaeda-affiliated militants.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday that the United States will fly tankers to refuel French jet fighters, expanding U.S. involvement, which had been limited to sharing intelligence and providing airlift support.

In an interview with CBS television program "60 Minutes," Obama bristled when asked to respond to criticism that the United States has been reluctant to engage in foreign policy issues like the Syrian crisis.

Obama said his administration put U.S. warplanes into the international effort to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and led a push to force Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office.

But in Syria, his administration wants to make sure U.S. action would not backfire, he said.

"We do nobody a service when we leap before we look, where we ... take on things without having thought through all the consequences of it," Obama told CBS.

"We are not going to be able to control every aspect of every transition and transformation" in conflicts around the world, he said. "Sometimes they're going to go sideways."